I got a refund from SJ for the return leg of my trip to Umeå because the night train was delayed. As the refund was in the form of a voucher I had to spend it all in one go, so I booked the night train to Berlin for Easter weekend. I’d passed through Berlin on my way to Wrocław and had just enough time to see that it had changed a lot since I was last there, in summer 1994.

The wastelands around the Brandenberg gate and Potsdamer Platz are now full of new shiny buildings and the number of building sites is much reduced. The (new) Hauptbahnhof sits beside the (new) government area and the restored Reichstag.